The Hills Have Eyes

R

Released Jul 22, 1977

1 hr. 23 min.

Horror

List

67%

27 Reviews

Tomatometer

54%

50,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Wes Craven's cult classic about cannibalistic mountain folk on the trail of stranded vacationers in the arid Southwest.

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Critics Consensus

When it's not bludgeoning the viewer with its more off-putting, cruder elements, The Hills Have Eyes wields some clever storytelling and a sly sense of dark humor.

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Jonathan O

Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes is really disturbing nasty and violent then Last House but Wes did really great work for building up the suspense and violent scenes to shock the audience and Michael Barryman is truly frightening character on film and the cinematography looks like was made for porn but it really does have grindhouse style for people who knew 42nd street or at the drive-in theater.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

09/19/23

Full Review

Wayne K

The second feature film from horror legend Wes Craven, The Hills Have Eyes lacks the controversial reputation of The Last House On The Left or the mass appeal of A Nightmare On Elm Street, existing in a bizarre middle ground in his filmography. It's nevertheless managed to gain a cult following because of its compelling story and the sense of fear and dread it successfully manifests. Owing a lot to films like Deliverance and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the film follows a group of city folk becoming stranded in remote Nevada and falling prey to a family of depraved cannibals. It explore themes of backwoods savagery and how easily a civilised person can become unstuck when their circumstances turn ugly. Craven incorporates lot of black humour into the story, mostly through his screenplay, full of weird dialogue and odd line deliveries, but when things start getting serious, you really feel a shift in the tone and pace. It's a mostly bloodless film that relies more on threat and menace for its scares than gore and gratuity, a lesson that modern horror filmmakers have still largely failed to learn, and while the fight sequences are often shot so close as to be nearly unseeable, I guess when you work on a minimal budget you don't have the luxury of proper fight choreography. All in all, it doesn't rank among my favourite horror films, but it's certainly one I'd recommend to fans of the genre, and if you have an hour and a half to spare, then I'd say it's more than worth the time.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

07/27/23

Full Review

Patrick C

This one took me for a ride. Wes Craven is hit or miss for me. The first half of the movie I was having a hard time due to mediocre acting and offensive and stereotypical antagonists and mostly unlikeable protagonists. At some point though I started to get emotionally invested and was really on the edge of my seat. I loved seeing the family fight back and be resourceful. I also love Ruby and the dog and they kinda stole the show for me

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

07/01/23

Full Review

GM M

Watch it if you get a chance.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

06/04/23

Full Review

michael m

In terms of 70s exploitation horror, this ones okay. Clearly influenced by Texas Chainsaw Massacre but no where NEAR the same level as that masterpiece, it has an interesting look at the different layers of humanity and cruelty and a few tense moments. However, whereas the low budget worked in favor for Texas Chainsaw, here it works against the film, making the whole thing really look like a home movie in an awkward way. Still, they did what they could, and I give them credit for an interesting idea.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Morgan D

Wes Craven excels at having a naturalistic grit in his older films, which lends to the brutal subject matter. Like the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there's a feeling of finding a video of something real and grotesque. However, the film could've been tightened in the middle.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

04/28/22

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Wes Craven

Director

Suze Lanier-Bramlett

Brenda Carter

Robert Houston

Bobby Carter

James Whitworth

Jupiter

Virginia Vincent

Ethel Carter

Russ Grieve

Big Bob Carter

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Variety Staff

Variety

A satisfying piece of pulp.

Jul 22, 2008

Full Review

Derek Adams

Time Out

A heady mix of ironic allegory and seat-edge tension.

Feb 9, 2006

Full Review

Eric Henderson

Slant Magazine

Craven's latent sick streak gets a major workout here, and the rudest shocks seem to center around the "good" family's parental figures.

Rated: 2.5/4

Sep 10, 2003

Full Review

James Kendrick

Q Network Film Desk

works as a taut thriller, but it also leaves plenty of room for political and ideological tunneling, if only for its horrific inversion of American family values

Rated: 3/4

Jan 6, 2022

Full Review

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

I've never been a Wes Craven fan, yet if there's one picture of his that I would place above all others, it would be The Hills Have Eyes.

Rated: 3/4

Nov 27, 2021

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

In essence, this is a cruel odyssey prizing the survival of the fittest, both family units operating by their own socially dictated codes, reduced to brutality and savagery for survival.

Rated: 3.5/5

Sep 30, 2020

Full Review

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Synopsis

Wes Craven's cult classic about cannibalistic mountain folk on the trail of stranded vacationers in the arid Southwest.

Director: Wes Craven
Screenwriter: Wes Craven
Distributor: Anchor Bay Entertainment, Vestron Video, Image Entertainment Inc.
Production Co: Blood Relations Co.
Rating: R
Genre: Horror
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 22, 1977, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 11, 2016
Sound Mix: Mono

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